No time is no excuse!

Quote: “It is a real shame and I would like things to be different, but I really don’t have time!” Of the people who stop working out at a gym, two-thirds state that this is due to a lack of time. These people are unable to free up 4 hours a week to work on their own health or other personal goals.
It is strange, because research by Statistics Netherlands from 2010 shows that the average Dutch person has about 30 hours of free time per week. Now, there may well be periods in your life when finding time is harder, but if you look hard enough, you will always manage to find time to exercise! The fact that you don't have any time left over can be due to various things:

Why is exercising not a priority?

If exercising is at the bottom of the list of things you can do, then you won't have time for it.
It might be a good idea to reflect once again on why you actually wanted to exercise, what you wanted to achieve, and how important this is to you.

Time management

Another reason people don't have time to exercise has to do with their schedules.
Americans use the expression: 'Failing to plan is planning to fail'. If you don't make a plan, you are planning for failure. This expression relates to time management. Fitness is a sport many people want to practice because the times you can exercise are freely chosen.

What's on your schedule?

But if you don't schedule the times you want to exercise in your calendar, you will find that your schedule easily fills up with all sorts of things and that you realize on Friday that you haven't gotten around to exercising at all.
Time management guru Stephen Covey has developed an effective method that ensures you get around to the things that are important to you. He distinguishes between tasks based on their urgency (meaning they require your immediate attention) and their importance (important for your life, health, and goals you want to achieve). It turns out that we lose a lot of time on matters that are not important but are urgent. An example of an urgent but not equally important event is someone calling you to make plans to do something fun. When the phone rings, this is urgent for most people; you are inclined to respond immediately. In this way, you can spend the entire day responding to urgent matters without getting around to important things.

Make a list of exercises!

Exercise: Make a list of all the activities you have to do in a day. Then, for each activity, determine whether it is urgent or not, and whether or not it is important.
Now take a sheet of paper on which you draw a cross (image) and then place all tasks in quadrants 1 through 4. Everything that falls into the urgent and important box must be done.

Everything that falls under the "not urgent, but important" category deserves special attention. This is where the important things are listed regarding the direction you are taking in life and the choices you make (career planning, studies, sports, health). These are the things that require planning. Write them in your calendar and schedule the rest around them.
You can easily cut back on anything that is unimportant and not urgent. Reading newsletters, Facebook updates, when you are short on time… cut them! Don't do it and control yourself.

What is really important?

You try to channel everything that is unimportant but urgent. You don't have to answer phone calls that come in out of the blue; you can set aside a fixed time to deal with them.
Exercising or being active for your health is almost never urgent, but on the other hand, it is very important. If you don't schedule it and want to exercise whenever you have the time, you will find that urgent things always take precedence and that every time at the end of the week you think... 'hmmm, I haven't exercised yet!'’

Division of household tasks

If you really can't figure it out, take a look at the division of tasks at home. Is a lot falling on your shoulders? Are there things you could ask for help with? Small household chores that the children could easily do themselves? When you explain to the people around you and in your household how important it is for you to find time to exercise, there is a good chance they will be willing to share tasks.

Need help with time management so you have time to exercise again? Ask our personal trainer for advice.